On Indigenous Peoples Day, I wanted to share a couple of historical facts:

• Columbus never set foot in the US.
• Spain sent Francisco de Bobadilla to investigate Columbus for corruption and atrocities.
• Columbus was put in chains and sent back to Spain where all his titles and positions were stripped from him. Some pretend Columbus was acquitted of his crimes, which isn’t quite factual; he was, in a sense pardoned, which allowed him to be freed from prison. While some claim that Columbus was proved his case in court, these accounts leave out the fact this was a “court” in the sense that Royals hold “court” when they meet people. The Spanish monarchs –not a court of law- dismissed Columbus’ charges but was prevented from resuming his pre-arrest positions. His heirs engaged in decades of suits to bestow upon themselves old Columbus titles which some represent as being the same thing as Columbus having not had those titles removed in the first place.
• If you want to educate yourself on what is celebrated in the US on Columbus Day, you can read Bartolomé de las Casas’ eyewitness account of Columbus’ atrocities.
• Columbus Day began as a fascist holiday celebrated to the tune of the Italian fascist party’s anthem featuring Nazi salutes.

It’s good to celebrate and honor Indigenous Peoples Day. Let’s do so with eyes open.

Bartolomé de las Casas

What follows is an eyewitness account of Columbus’ monstrous barbarism and inhumanity:

I was an Eye-Witness of these and innumerable number of other cruelties…

They snatched young babes from the mothers breasts, and then bashed the brains out of those innocents against the rocks; others they cast into rivers scoting and jeering them, and called upon their bodies when falling with disrespect. This was the true testimony of their cruelty, inhumanely exposing others to their merciless swords, together with the mothers that gave them Life.

They erected certain gibbets, large, but low made, so that their feet almost reached the ground, every one of which was so ordered as to bear thirteen people in honor and reverence (as they said blasphemously) of our Redeemer and his Twelve Apostles, under which they made a fire to burn them to ashes while they hang. But those they intended to preserve alive, they were dismissed, their hands half cut and still hanging by the skin, to carry their letters to those that fly from us and lay skulking on the mountains.

The lords and persons of noble extract were usually exposed to this kind of death; they ordered grid irons to be placed and supported with wooden forks, and putting a small fire under them, these miserable wretches by degrees and with loud shrieks and exquisite torments, at last expired.

I once saw four or five of their most powerful Lords laid on these grid irons, roasted, and not far off, two or three more over-spread with the same commodity, man’s flesh; but the shrill clamors which were heard there being offensive to the Captain, by hindering his repose, he commanded them to be strangled with a halter.

The Executioner (whose Name and Parents at Sevil are not unknown to me) prohibited the doing of it; but stopped gags into their mouths to prevent the hearing of the noise (he himself making the fire) till that they died, when they had been roasted as long as he thought convenient.

MAGA vs. Facts

As Indigenous Peoples Day approached, the delusional personality cult that is MAGA seems intent upon making it government policy that we collectively pretend that history isn’t history. Instead, unless we collectively pretend that Columbus came to the US, discovered America, that Columbus wasn’t a criminal, or that he was a genocidal monster.

Vikings weren’t the first Westerners to settle the Americas, you see. It was Columbus. Easterners were the first to discover the Americas far more than 10 thousand years ago, it was was Columbus, you see. Yes, Columbus was arrested, but it was for corruption rather than atrocities, you see.

And unless you agree to pretend the historical record doesn’t exist, then you just hate America and are probably an Antifa General that needs to be investigated by the FBI. If you disagree, then you’re a fascist, you see.

Trump’s Nonsense

What follows is an ahistorical bedtime story fascists tell themselves about history:

Born in Genoa, Italy in 1451, Columbus quickly emerged as a titan of the Age of Exploration… Upon his arrival, he planted a majestic cross in a mighty act of devotion, dedicating the land to God and setting in motion America’s proud birthright of faith.  Though he initially believed he had arrived in Asia, his discovery opened the vast frontier and untold splendors of the New World to Europe.  He later ventured onward to Cuba and other islands in the Caribbean — exploring their coasts and engaging with their people.

Guided by steadfast prayer and unwavering fortitude and resolve, Columbus’s journey carried thousands of years of wisdom, philosophy, reason, and culture across the Atlantic into the Americas — paving the way for the ultimate triumph of Western civilization less than three centuries later on July 4, 1776.

Outrageously, in recent years, Christopher Columbus has been a prime target of a vicious and merciless campaign to erase our history, slander our heroes, and attack our heritage.  Before our very eyes, left-wing radicals toppled his statues, vandalized his monuments, tarnished his character, and sought to exile him from our public spaces.  Under my leadership, those days are finally over — and our Nation will now abide by a simple truth:  Christopher Columbus was a true American hero, and every citizen is eternally indebted to his relentless determination.

These are the mad ravings of a man high on his own farts.

We are compelled to “celebrate” and excuse the atrocities of genocide because, in 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to build a stronger relationship with Italy and appease Italian Americans, who faced historically significant violence and discrimination at the time, as they were not considered sufficiently white. This attempt at diplomacy, however, occurred as fascist ideology was gaining influence in Italy.

The Italian fascist party saw Italian immigrant communities in the U.S. as “colonies” of the Italian state. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, fascist propagandists like Generoso Pope, a member of the Fascist League of North America, published newspapers and organized groups, like The Order of the Sons of Italy, within Italian-American communities, appealing to traditional, communitarian values while promising national advancement.

For years, Poe had organized Columbus Day parades in New York, and he met with Franklin D. Roosevelt to convince him to pronounce Poe’s local holiday to be a national holiday. Roosevelt did so in 1937.

During the 1930s Columbus Day parades in New York City, reporters noted a pro-fascist atmosphere. In 1936, Poe’s Columbus Day parade had “Fascisti” in military uniforms marching in formation. In 1937, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared Columbus Day a federal holiday, spectators threw the Nazi solutes to the sound of Giovinezza, the anthem of Italian fascism.  

This is the historical reality MAGA wishes to erase. Remember, from trans existence to religious freedom, there is no issue –none, not one– that MAGA cares about that is not motivated by bigotry. MAGA cares about Columbus Day to the precise existent that Columbus Day’s progenitor, Generoso Pope did: its utility to normalize fascism.